I'm on vacation this week and I'm trying to access my home DVR camera system (Bunker Hill DVR) from the hotels I've been staying at. Unfortunately, I have not been able to access them successfully. I tested out my port forwarding on my router before I left, so I know it is working the way it should. The booklet that came with the system recommended using port 80, but I used 1024 instead, which I of course configured on the DVR and added the port forward to my router.

But do hotels block certain outgoing ports, or could there be something else wrong?

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Some do, some don't. They are not all the same.
–
ZoredacheJul 13 '12 at 17:15

"the system recommended using port 80, but I used 1024 instead". And that's because port 80 is almost allways open. The hotel is almost certanly blocking other ports.
–
criziotJul 13 '12 at 18:55

2 Answers
2

Most hotels use NAT. They have one (or a limited number) of public IPs and so they distribute private IPs. As a result they are not redirecting incoming server traffic to any of those private IPs.

When you request a web page (via a server running, typically on port 80) the NAT router remembers that your specific computer asked another specific computer for the page, so when its returned from the server it allows it back in.Traffic that gets redirected can sometimes get hung up with NAT.

They may also have a firewall, which is something that prevents outbound traffic,IE doesnt allow you to connect via SSH (port 22) to a server or VPN (various ports). They can also do inbound filtering, although NAT is usually sufficent.

If you are having problems, and you know you can access those kinds of services from home (or elsewhere) try VPN. You can setup a VPN router or server at home, or try a comercial service. Another- and far more geeky way- is to create an SSH tunnel for the traffic. You can use a program such as Putty (windows XP) to encrypt traffic b/t your computer and, say, your home computer.

That all being said, if you are using a connection at a hotel with out a VPN you may really want to consider finding a solution. Using a VPN not only protects your traffic (at least from the eyes of other guests) but basically removes you from the hotel's network which really protects you against worms and hackers,great idea anytime you are out of the office or home.

Although we don't know for sure, most hotels do. I used to work in a hotel, and they would block everything except port 80. They did, however, unblock certain common ports if you ask them (mostly email or FTP ports). Every hotel will be different though, and the only way to be sure is to ask them or their IT company that does their work for them.